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| England v Ghana |
7.59pm: National anthems now. Ghanaian one rapturously received. the droning intro to God Save The Queen quickly stamps all over that.
7.57pm: Out they come. Capello high fives the ball-boys, waves to the crowd and does a forward roll down the red carpet. Not really. Instead he looks a bit cross and walks off to his seat without saying a word.
7.54pm: Here they come down the tunnel. Although Ghana seem to have just sent the mascots. Where are they? Robin Hazlehurst writes: "Given that the nature of many of England's unpleasantly arrogant self-anointedly 'golden' generation have put many people off supporting England for a while, I'd say that it is nice to see some different faces in the shirts. Maybe this lot will care about the team more than about themselves (or maybe not, but you can hope...). After the World Cup Capello was roundly criticised for not having a clear out, so maybe we should welcome it, at least a bit, now? I know it's for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't make it the worst thing that could have happened." Yeah. Barry is a bit of a weird one. Why's he captain? He's a reserve. Give it to nice Joe Hart.
7.51pm: Dan Smith muses: "Damn you Capello. It's so much harder supporting Ghana when the usual bunch of repellent underachievers aren't included. What's the point of hating Phil Jagielka?" There is no point. I believe he is even quite likeable. Leighton Baines has an endearing little face. It makes you sick.
7.47pm: Those teams in full:
England Hart, Johnson, Cahill, Jagielka, Baines, Milner, Barry, Wilshere, Downing, Carroll, Young.Subs Green, Lescott, Parker, Jarvis, Welbeck, Defoe, Crouch, Bent, Carson.
Ghana Kingson, Pantsil, Vorsah, John Mensah, Lee Addy, Adiyah, Annan, Agyemang-Badu, Kwadwo Asamoah, Muntari, Gyan.
Subs Adjei, Opare, Inkoom, Derek Boateng, Tagoe, Ayew, David Addy, Jonathan Mensah, Kumordzi, Clottey, Sowah.
Referee Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey)
Hmm. Hope Jarvis gets on. He is a really decent winger. Wellbeck is intriguing too, for obvious reasons. Pretty underwhelmed by the rest of them on that bench. Filler.
Quite few familiar faces in the Ghana team. Note: Jonathan Mensah/John Mensah. It's like the Gary Stevens/Gary Stevens golden era of the mid 1980s.
7.43pm: Bristol Chris is feeling it too: "Barney, despite all the negativity, I think I'm Ghana enjoy seeing the Black Stars back on our screens again. I think most of us fell in love with them in South Africa." Then again, Dirtymac is feeling the B-team-actually-look-better-than-the-A-team vibe too. "With the amount of complaining people are doing about Fabio's fielding of a B team, the line up looks pretty bloody good. Besides, up until the game against wales, the A team has hardly set the world alight (I just spent the last three minutes trying to fit a proper Hannibal or B.A. Barracus quote into that, just not working though.)"
7.41pm: On the other hand, that 4-3-3 is quite interesting isn't it? And Wilshere, Young, Downing, Carroll. It's... kind of interesting isn't it. Gah. Stop it England B.
7.35pm: Still, England really do owe everybody a proper display tonight. There has been some dissent. Stephan Appiah could certainly be happier. He says England have shown "disrespect". On the other hand John Mensah has never been tenser: he says Ghana will turn "upside down" if they win tonight. Which brings me to my main point. This game isn't pointless because Ghana really want to win it - and so the 21,000 Ghanaians in the stadium. London is full of Ghanaians who would be delighted to beat England. So let's hope they do win. I for one am backing Ghana tonight, despite having supported England - occasionally tearfully - in every one of the 400 or so England matches I've watched since the 0-0 draw with Morocco at Mexico '86 (damn you, infuriating and indolent Glenn Hoddle). Anyone else switching sides?
7.31pm: Only three first choice outfield players in there, Young, Johnson and Wilshere. But still it's not such a bad team if you ask me. Cahill and Jagielka make for an excellent pair in this kind of football. Wilshere is (currently) The Chosen One. Downing is much better than you remember him being. And Andy Carroll is a £35m striker and the fifth (possibly) most expensive footballer of all time so he must be great and that's all there is to it I'm not listening.
7.24pm: Hello and welcome to live coverage of the most significant England friendly this week. It's England B v Ghana at Wembley Stadium: The Black Stars versus the slack stars in front of sell-out crowd, many of whom presumably bought their tickets quite a while ago. The big issue here is of course the selection of a weakened team by Fabio Capello. And here is that weakened team in full:
England Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka, James Milner, Gareth Barry, Jack Wilshere; Andy Carroll, Ashley Young, Stewart DowningSources: http://www.guardian.co.uk
